This day has given us so much to think about, I will be brief.

Has it struck you, as it did me,
how tenderly the gospel speaks of the relationship between Abraham and Dives?
Here Dives is suffering the torments of hell
and he still calls Abraham, "my father,"
and Abraham in turn calls Dives, "my child."
There's no getting around it, is there? It's all about relationships.

In both the first reading and the gospel there is, it's true, a chiding tone:
the rich have all these good things and in the end they will pay . . .
but in both readings the kicker is they will pay because they are
unaware of others who don't have what they have;
unconcerned about those who are suffering.
That line in Amos is particularly poignant, I think:
they "are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph."

I look at that string of indictments in the Amos reading
and I know that most of us enjoy at least some of the same riches:
the calf, the songs, the precious oils (especially if you happen to be a client of Rose Marie Quilter's) . . .
but in what ways are we not grieved over the ruin of Joseph . . .
in what ways do we ignore Lazarus at the gate of our plenty?
Of course we go immediately to the big picture:
we look at our rich country and see all the ways we protect our goods;
all the ways we waste our resources;
all the ways we refuse to participate in international efforts
to save our environment.
We look at the desperately poor people in these United States who are
messed over by the system; who are ignored.
And go there we must.
We need to be grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
We need to do whatever we can to inform ourselves, to pray mightily, to take the actions we can to address all those huge issues.

But we need, too, I think,
to look at the way these challenges address our personal, day to day lives.
Who are the Lazaruses in your life?
From whom do I withhold myself?
To whom am I closed off?
You know the famous Gandhi quotation: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

I loved the invitation Kathy Conan gave us in the recent teleconference—
that we live into the grace we have been offered:
really to become one heart/one soul in the Heart of Jesus.
I have found myself thinking more in terms of
"being alive to" than "loving," for some reason.
When I am alive to someone,
there is less a sense of giving, receiving,
being in a secure position from which to bestow my riches.
There is far more a sense of our being in reality together.
That person's self which I try to see "whole and against a wide sky"
is as important to me as my own.
I would love always to approach people with a fresh awareness,
without a preconceived idea about who they are, what they are like, what they will do.

If we truly believe the means to live our vocation
is to make our own the dispositions of Jesus' heart,
then we can believe we've one heart loving through each of us.
Of course we cannot be alive to everyone—
those who are closed to us, those whose "otherness" is off-putting to us—
on our own.

And in the main we're not even talking about Jesus' commandment
to all of us who call ourselves Christian:
that we love our enemies and do good to those who hurt us.
We take that for granted.
We go the next step and trust
that the One who is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves
will grace us with the power we need, at each moment,
to be alive to everyone who is given to us in that moment.

Oh we are rich, my sisters.
But none of the richness is for ourselves alone.
There is no "my" and "mine", only "ours" and no one is excluded.

Joan Gannon, rscj, offered this homily
at the Eucharistic Celebration during the
Area Directors' Meeting in St. Louis
- September 29, 2007.